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Archives: June 2010
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Archives: June 2010
Did the church fail in the 20th Century? - Part two: No!
By Craig Borlase
Last month we looked at a few of the reasons why the last century didn’t show us at our best. Now, tough, we’ve got some other ideas to chew over.
The list of things we got right in the twentieth century is long. Too long for a page like this. But we can make a start…
1. The Birth of Pentecostalism
It took us almost a couple of thousand years, but we finally woke up to the need to get properly acquainted with the Holy Spirit. It got its big momentum after a series of meetings in downtown Los Angeles in 1906. Within a century, Pentecostalism would find itself one of the largest – and most rapidly growing – elements within the Church. A congregation of 600 million and rising is nothing to be sniffed at in these days.
2. Fought the Fascists
Martin Niemoller, a Lutheran, gathered support and created the Confessing Church. Karl Barth joined in the attacks on fascists and made clear that anti-Semitism was unjustifiable, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer made the ultimate sacrifice. He travelled to India to study non-violent resistance with Gandhi and returned to Germany. There, as part of the Confessing Church, he opposed Nazism and, in 1939, joined with high-ranking military officers in planning to kill Hitler.
It was not until 1944 that those plans were ready to be put into action, yet the July 20 Plot failed when all those years of planning were frustrated by the simple act of someone moving the suitcase containing the bomb out of Hitler’s range. Bonhoeffer’s execution was brutal. Stripped, tortured and led naked into the execution yard, he was hoisted by meathooks to a noose formed by piano wire. It took half an hour for him to die. A month later the Nazis surrendered.
3. Embraced Reform
The Catholic Church moved toward its most profound change in too many centuries. The Second Vatican Council made it possible for Mass to be conducted around the world in a language other than Latin, bishops were to give considerable more time to engage with pastoral (as opposed to exclusively administrative) issues and laypeople were allowed both bread and wine at the Eucharist.
Finally the Jews were absolved of all guilt for the crucifixion and Catholics were urged to devour the bible for themselves, even the Protestant version. Of all the changes, perhaps the most symbolic was the simplest: the priest turned to face the congregation.
4. Fought for Rights
Martin Luther King was the single greatest influence in the drive for civil rights during the twentieth century. His faith was moulded by his Baptist upbringing and his application of the gospel to the needs of the whole individual had a radical impact. For the pastor charges of marital infidelity did little to dent his impact, even though the charges were fair and true. While some struggled to accept him as a true Church leader, his life was given over to attempts to ‘feed the hungry’, ‘clothe the naked’, ‘be right on the war question’, and ‘love and serve humanity’.
In South America Liberation theology unpicked the assumption that the Church needed first to pursue its theology along intellectual lines before putting it into action. Instead, went the argument, social injustices should be tackled first, with the talking about it only following after.
Oscar Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador in El Salvador was a living example of this being a vocal opponent of the human rights abuses carried out against both the poor and the Church during the country’s civil war. He paid with his life in 1980, assassinated while conducting mass. At his funeral a week later mourners dodged bullets and bombs. The army was accused and considered guilty by most.
And here’s a conclusion…
We are a glorious cocktail of failure and success, of goodness triumphing over sin and sin triumphing over goodness. We are fragile, we are fallen, we are fail-ers. And we are capable of remarkable sacrifice, of jaw-dropping generosity and life-changing forgiveness. Search any century and you will find examples of the Church at its best and worst.
But search the lives of any one of us and you probably won’t find the same extremes. We can be tempted to live in the shallow waters, not messing up too badly but not taking too many risks with our faith either. We can live in the grey, but I don’t think the colour suits us at all.
The next ninety years probably won’t present such horrific bloodshed as was experienced in the last century. But that does not mean that there are not similarly horrific injustices waiting to leech out of the church if it fails to find its voice. In an age of growing divisions between the wealthy and the poor, and a time where meaning gets watered-down to the dumbest common denominator, where our climate is in chaos and our families are broken down, there couldn’t be a better opportunity for ordinary Christians like you and I to take God-soaked risks with our lives.
About the author...
Craig is a lovely chap who lives in Reading. He's a writer, think and all round creative tinker! He has a lovely family and back in the annuls of time used to work for Soul Survivor (in fact he was the one who invented the idea of a Soul Survivor Magazine... so you owe him a lot... well, we do). Extracts from his latest book '2159AD: A History of Christianity' are used throughout this article.
Soul Survivor is a Christian charity that puts on events for young people. Our registered charity no. is 1080720. We are also a company limited by guarantee in England & Wales. Our company registered number is 03991111, which is nice. Thanks for caring.
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